NOTES AND QUERIES.
MAMMALIA.
CHIROPTERA.
Leisler's Bat in Cheshire.— When waiting for Bats in Dunham Park, near Bowdon, on May 8th, I noticed a large one with a flight that was different to that of the Noctule. I watched it until too late to get a safe shot, and missed. A few minutes later I saw a second Bat, which I succeeded in shooting, and was surprised to find that it was Leisler's Bat, Vesperugo leisleri (Kuhl). I killed it at 7.45 p.m., a short time after I had observed the first Noctules on the wing. The flight was slower and more erratic than that of the Noctule, whose movements early in the evening are usually dashing and rapid. On one or two evenings since I have noticed Bats with similar flight to the Leisler's Bat I shot, and believe that they were also of that species. It is not safe, however, to dogmatise on the difference, for on the 29th I saw a Bat flying slowly, which, when I shot it, turned out to be a female Noctule. Upon picking up the Leisler's Bat which I had shot, I was at once struck by the small size, the dark brown fur, and the absence of the peculiar smell of V. noctula; and, upon carefully measuring the animal and examining the teeth, I felt sure that it was V. leisleri. Dr. N.H. Alcock and Mr. W. de Winton have kindly confirmed my identification of the species. All the Bats I noticed with this slow erratic flight were flying in one direction along an avenue of beeches. When they had passed I never saw them return, although undoubted Noctules which flew down the same avenue came back again several times. Both the Leisler's Bats and Noctules appeared to come from the same clump of old beeches, though I have not been able to discover from which tree they actually emerged. Noctules are exceedingly plentiful in Dunham Park, passing the day in holes high up in the beeches, and in the evening repairing to one of the glades or open spaces, where they course backwards and forwards high overhead. As a rule, on emerging, they fly higher than the tops of the trees; the Leisler's Bat I shot was a little below the level of the tree-tops. This species has not been previously recorded from Cheshire.—T. A. Coward (Bowdon, Cheshire).
The Serotine (Vespertilio serotinus) near Hastings.—Upon showing the note with this heading (Zool. 1897, p. 141) to my friend the Rev.
